Optimal Trace Professional 5.2 Release Notes

April 08, 2009

1. Obtaining the Latest Release Notes

For the most recent updates to the Release Notes, go to FrontLine, Compuware's Customer Support Web site, at http://frontline.compuware.com. The first time you access FrontLine, you are required to register and obtain a password. Registration is free. After logging in to FrontLine, select your product from the list and click Go. On the left side of the product page, click the Documentation link. You will find the latest Release Notes listed with the other product documentation.

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2. System Requirements

  • Pentium 4-class processor equivalent or higher

  • 256 MB RAM (minimum), 512 MB or higher (recommended)

  • 150 MB of available hard disk space

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003, XP, or Vista

  • Adobe Reader 5.0 or later for Help files

Software Compatibility

  • Microsoft Word 2000, 2003, or 2007

  • Microsoft Project 2000 or 2002

  • Enterprise Architect 6.5

  • Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 with service pack 2005.04

  • Citrix Client 8.0, 9.0, 9.15, or 9.23

Note: Note: Optimal Trace does not support Citrix Client 9.20 since there are known issues with running Java applications.
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3. What's New

What's new in Optimal Trace Enterprise:

Bidirectional Integration with QADirector

The Optimal Trace - QADirector integration is now an Optimal Trace plug-in and once installed is accessible directly from the Optimal Trace Enterprise product menu. This streamlines the process of publishing information to QADirector and removes the 2-step export/utility approach. Risk factors and time values can now be initialized in QADirector from Optimal Trace. Quality metrics being managed in QADirector can be retrieved from QADirector and stored with their associated requirements in Optimal Trace. For Optimal Trace users this now provides insight into requirement quality and shows traceability from requirement to test to result to defect. You can install the Optimal Trace - QADirector integration from the installation media or download it from FrontLine.

Managing Users From a Directory Service

As an alternative to manually adding and updating user information in the Optimal Trace Administrator user table, Optimal Trace now provides the capability to import and update user information from a directory service. A directory service is a software system that stores, organizes and provides access to network resource information across a Windows server domain. Optimal Trace supports directory service software, such as Microsoft Active Directory, that communicates with and/or hosts directory services using Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). For more information, refer to the Managing Users and Groups chapter in the Optimal Trace Administrator Help.

User Management and Permissions

Optimal Trace Enterprise now provides additional capabilities for managing users, groups and permissions. You can now define default project permissions for users and groups. A new option in the server component of Optimal Trace Enterprise allows you to enable project security as the default security setting for all new projects created in Optimal Trace Enterprise. For more information, refer to the Setting Project and Package Permissions chapter in the Optimal Trace Administrator Help.

Windows Integrated Authentication

You can set Windows Integrated Authentication as the default authentication protocol for projects saved in the Optimal Trace Enterprise repository. Using Windows Integrated Authentication allows you to suppress a login prompt when accessing Optimal Trace Enterprise projects provided users have a valid Windows user account name and password. For more information, refer to the Setting Up Windows Integrated Authentication topic in the Optimal Trace Enterprise Server Help.

Deleting Projects and Baselines

The project and baseline delete capability has been moved from their respective Open dialog boxes to a standalone menu command on the Project menu.

Incremental Search Feature

An incremental search feature is available to help you quickly find items in the Open Remote Project dialog box and the Group and Users lists in Optimal Trace Administrator. This feature allows you to type the first few letters of a desired project, group, or user and quickly sort the list based on the specified search criteria.

x64 Server Support

The server component of Optimal Trace Enterprise 5.2 is now available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

What's new in Optimal Trace Enterprise and Optimal Trace Professional:

Optimal Trace Plug-in SDK

This release of Optimal Trace includes a comprehensive SDK for building plugins for Optimal Trace. Plug-ins are Java components that are accessible from within the Optimal Trace client and can be used to integrate Optimal Trace with other third-party lifecycle tools. The SDK provides the ability to access project-level entities and query/create/modify artifacts within an Optimal Trace project. The SDK includes code templates to build your own plug-ins with comprehensive documentation on the objects and methods exposed in Optimal Trace. Development of Optimal Trace plug-ins requires Java programming skills. Documentation for the Optimal Trace Plug-in SDK is available on FrontLine.

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4. Technical Notes

Optimal Trace Professional Documentation

The Optimal Trace Professional Help, which is installed with the product, contains Optimal Trace Enterprise edition usage instructions for features such as using project templates and project baselines, managing remote projects in a database, and collaborating with team members. These features are not supported in the Optimal Trace Professional edition.

Document Generation Performance Tips

When generating documentation for very large projects, the generation performance can be dramatically improved (up to 50% with standard MS Office configurations) by adjusting the priority settings for Optimal Trace and Microsoft Word within the Windows task manager. Locate the Optimal Trace and Word processes, called Optimal Trace and Winword respectively. To adjust the priority, right click on each process and choose Set Priority. Set the priority to high for each process.

Setting the priorities to high will prevent other running applications from getting CPU time and you are effectively prevented from interacting with your machine until generation is finished. When generation is complete, be sure to reset the priorities back to normal.

Document Generation Security Settings

The Word generation in Optimal Trace relies on macros, which are embedded in word. If your security settings are set to high this will prevent generation. Ensure that the security setting is at low. For example, in Word 2003 you can access this from the tools>macro>security… menu option. For other versions of Word, refer to the Word help within the Microsoft product.

Document Generation WinWord Processes

In many cases where issues are encountered, these can be traced back to rogue Word processes that have not been shut down. Ensure that all such processes are shut down prior to document generation. To see how many 'WinWord' processes you have currently running look at the 'Processes' tab in the Task Manager. For each process right click on it and hit the 'End Process' option.

Failed Word Document Updates

In cases where updates to word documents are failing, this can be isolated to a setting in word associated with background saves. If you see problems, try un-checking this option in Word. For example, to do this in Word 2003 go to the Tools>>Options menu and select the 'save' tab, then uncheck the 'Allow Background Saves' setting. For other versions of Word, refer to the Word help within the Microsoft product.

Decreasing Document Size

One way to decrease the size of a document is to remove all the hidden Optimal Trace text. Note that when you do this, you will no longer be able to update or reverse that documents, and re-generating the document will result in all the hidden text being re-inserted. To remove all hidden text in a document, do the following:

  1. Navigate to the top of the document, and select the Edit/Replace menu option.

  2. Click More.

  3. Click Format/Font. The Find Font dialog box appears.

  4. Click Hidden once, turning it from grey to black.

  5. Click OK.

  6. Click Replace All.

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5. Known Issues

This section describes known issues related to the current release of Optimal Trace. 

Control #

Description

1686

Inconsistent error message when cancelling word document generation and Word may crash

Depending on when you interrupt the document generation process, you may receive a COM exception returned from Microsoft Word and Word may crash.

Workaround: Ignore the exception from Microsoft Word, Optimal Trace continues as normal. You may additionally need to stop the winword.exe process in Task Manager.

2147

Document generation and form protected style template

When using a Microsoft form document as a style template for a document generation profile, Optimal Trace will not generate the document if the form is protected..

Workaround: Do not protect the style template form before generating.

2172

Links don't work in generated document

If generating a form-based profile (e.g. Default Form), links in the document (e.g. Table of Contents, hyperlinks, etc) do not work.

Workaround: This is a known feature of Word forms. These links will not work if the document is protected. To allow working links, do not protect the form. Deselect the Protect Form toolbar button.

2267

Incorrect macro security settings in Word can lead to application error

If generating a document from Optimal Trace and an exception occurs, ensure that the security settings in Word are set to Low.

Workaround: In Word, ensure that the macro security option is set to Low. For example, in Word 2003, choose Tools>Macro>Security Settings. The Security Settings dialog box appears. Ensure that the option is set to Low.

2354

Change History changes do not get included as part of a document update

Optimal Trace was designed to not include any Change History additions as part of a document update if that profile has a Change History element.

Workaround: Generate either a standalone Change History document or re-generate your document from scratch to see all the Change History entries.

2501

Out of Memory Errors while generating HTML or Image Maps from large Projects

Generating Image Maps from large Projects is very memory intensive. If you repeatedly generate the 'Full Project' HTML Report with a large Project you will eventually get an Out of Memory Error. The same can happen if you repeatedly 'Save Image' for a very large Project.

Workaround: Try and limit generating HTML for large Projects or Image Saving to once per Optimal Trace session. If you do get an Out of Memory error, restart Optimal Trace and re-try generating HTML or Save Image once again.

4031

Orphaned Branch or Refinement in the Requirements Map

In certain rare situations a line representing a Branch or Refinement may get duplicated resulting in an orphaned line remaining on the graph. This line has no connection to any Requirements or Steps and as such will not result in any errors or corruption of projects, but may prove an annoyance.

Workaround: You need to open a new window (Window -> New Window) and close the original window and continue as normal.

4241

Cannot add form fields to non-form document profiles

If you attempt to add form fields to a non-form document profile, Optimal Trace may not be able to reverse or update the profile.

Workaround: Avoid using form fields in non-form based profiles. It's perfectly ok to add custom fields to form based profiles, but just don't mix the two.

4287

Table of contents page numbers can be incorrect

After updating or reversing a document, you may notice that the page numbers in the table of contents to not correlate correctly to the document content.

Workaround: This behavior seems to be related to the large amount of hidden text that Optimal Trace documents contain. Removing all the hidden text can help here (but you will no longer be able to update or reverse the document). See the Document Generation: General Tips section below for details on how to remove all the hidden text in a document.

4427

Document Generation will fail if you use 'xxxxx' as a Requirement name

'xxxxx' is a reserved word used internally by Optimal Trace document generation, and if you use it as a Requirement name in your Project, document generation will fail.

Workaround: Avoid using 'xxxxx' as a Requirement name.

4672

Type of images generated during Report generation

It should be noted that the style of images generated during Report generation (using the 'Default HTML' report for example) all depend on what 'graph display option' is selected in the application.

Workaround: You can vary the images by right clicking on the Requirement Map and changing the Package display style.

4757

'Hide Steps' option can cause instability when moving Steps

Under certain circumstances, using the 'Hide Steps' Requirement option along with moving Steps can cause Optimal Trace to crash.

Workaround: try and avoid using the 'Hide Step' Requirement options.

4861

Using the Change History in a Report

By default, the Project Change History is not passed to the Velocity Report generation engine. This is for performance reasons.

Workaround: to use the Change History from a new Report, change the 'passChangeHistoryToReportGenTemplates=No' setting in 'Default.properties' (located in the Optimal Trace installation directory) to 'passChangeHistoryToReportGenTemplates=Yes'.

4876

Problems with 'Create Reserved Area' menu option in Word

To begin with, it's recommended to display hidden text before using this feature (Optimal Trace->Toggle Hidden Tags). This is because the caret may not be at the correct position, even though it looks fine without the hidden text on screen. What can happen, for instance, is that the Reserved Area gets inserted into the middle of another XML tag, which destroys the document's structure.

Workaround: In any event, most of the time Reserved Areas are unnecessary, as it is possible to insert text as-is into almost all areas of the document without needing any "wrapping". Reserved areas are mainly needed for the characters '<' ,'&', or similar input that would interfere with the document's XML structure. The best approach is:

  1. Turn on hidden text.

  2. Insert your new content as-is, at the correct caret position.

  3. Save and close the document.

  4. Try reversing the document into the corresponding Optimal Trace project. If any XML parse errors are flagged, click on the error location '...' button and wrap the offending text in a Reserved section. This will presumably be the new content you have just entered.

  5. If no errors were reported by the import process, then everything should be fine. You can either cancel or continue the merge process, as you like.

4877

Problems with 'Replace IDs and Names' menu option in Word

Indiscriminate use of this feature can cause problems and leave the document in an invalid state, so use it with caution.

Workaround: In any event, most of the time Reserved Areas are unnecessary, as it is possible to insert text as-is into almost all areas of the document without needing any "wrapping". Reserved areas are mainly needed for the characters '<' ,'&', or similar input that would interfere with the document's XML structure. The best approach is:

Workaround: The following is recommended:

  1. Make a backup of the document before doing any advanced editing along these lines.

  2. Turn on hidden text.

  3. Carefully select the area that needs updating. Make sure that any ID strings (usually at the start of a section) that you wish to update are included in the selection.

  4. . It will help to clarify exactly what 'Replace IDs and Names' does. It updates the IDs and names of any objects it detects in it's selection. However it does not update the IDs of other objects that these objects refer to. So for instance, if you copy and paste a refinement, then selected the newly pasted area and click 'Replace IDs and Names', this new refinement will receive a fresh name and ID. However, it's source StepId and destination Requirement ID will not be updated. Therefore there will be 2 refinements starting from the same step and refining to the same Requirement, which is illegal. This will show up as an error when this document is reversed into Optimal Trace. In this and similar situations, further manual editing of the document is necessary after 'Replace IDs and Names' has been run.

  5. Replace IDs and Names also corrects the Step Position numbers on any Step tables it finds. This is a convenience for the user as manually fixing Step Position numbers can be time-consuming.

4878

Problems with 'Duplicate current row' menu option in Word

This menu item will duplicate the current row the caret is positioned on (e.g. a Step in a Scenario Table). You cannot use this feature to add a new step to an empty table, there must be one already there for it to copy. The duplicated item will get a fresh name and ID, and if it's a Step, any affected Step position numbers will be updated. However it will not update any other properties of the duplicated object, so sometimes further manual editing is necessary.

Workaround:

  1. Turn on hidden text and navigate to a branch table (which is hidden by default).

  2. Place the caret on a particular branch and select 'Duplicate Current Row'.

  3. Select 'Toggle Hidden Tags' again as this macro turns off hidden text.

  4. The new branch will have a new name and ID, but the IDs of it's source and destination Steps will remain the same. Therefore you now have 2 branches coming from the same Step and branching to the same Step, which is illegal. This will show up as an error when the document is reversed.

  5. The new branch will have to manually edited to correctly contain whatever sourceID and DestinationID are required.

4984

Problems with manually setting tags to hidden in Word

If a document is being manually edited and the editing involves changing hidden text to visible text, or vice-versa, problems can occur. A typical problem is that even though only one word was changed from non-hidden to hidden, a large amount of the document surrounding that word automatically gets changed to hidden text as well. Including important Optimal Trace data such as the ActorList, for instance. Then, when the editing is finished and 'Optimal Trace->Toggle Hidden Tags' is selected, the ActorList will appear to have disappeared, as it is now rendered in hidden text.

The reverse problem can also happen, where a quantity of previously invisible content suddenly appears. Word is trying to automatically update the underlying style in that paragraph, rather than just update the selected text.

Workaround: Firstly, the document should always be backed up before commencing manual edits, as there are many traps like this. To get rid of the immediate bad formatting, click undo until the document has reverted to it's state before the hidden-text edit had started. Now click Format->Style (or Format->Styles and Formatting depending on your version of Word). Now select the Style type of the text you were editing. Usually 'Body Text', 'Hidden', or 'Normal' but it could be any of the other types as well. The style type of the selected text appears in the Formatting toolbar, which can be turned on under Tools->Customize->Toolbars. When the correct style type has been selected, click 'Modify...' and deselect the 'Automatically Update' checkbox. Now it should be possible to change the text from hidden to non-hidden in safety. This problem typically occurs when some of the hidden XML tags in a generated document have been accidentally damaged, and the user is fixing the errors manually.

5122

Problem with validating a Skeleton Document that is already open

If your editing a Skeleton Document in Word, and you validate it in Optimal Trace (from the Document Settings screen), you risk losing work as Word does not let you save and continue properly.

Workaround: avoid validating a Skeleton Document and editing it at the same time.

5217

Project Elements appear in different order in Merge

Under certain conditions, the Project child elements will appear in a different order in the From and To Merge Projects.

Workaround: There is no workaround; the appearance order does not effect the underlying functionality.

5389

Print Preview for Optimal Trace Documents shows hidden text

Workaround: In Word, ensure that Hidden Text is unchecked. For example, in Word 2003 go to Tools>Options>Print to view the setting. For other versions of Word, refer to the Word help within the Microsoft product.

5465

Canceling some actions in Optimal Trace does not release locks

If you do something in a dialog in Optimal Trace (e.g. move a Requirement) and then cancel the action, the objects in question will still remain locked by Optimal Trace.

Workaround: Save your project to release the locks.

5470

Document Generation Custom Property restrictions
  1. Custom Properties have to be contained in a table, they are bound to tables.

  2. Custom Properties are either row-or column based and again this is statically bound. You can't change your Step Custom Properties from column type to row type by editing the skeleton doc, for instance.

  3. Custom Property Template details (name, Id etc) have to appear before the corresponding Custom Properties in the skeleton doc. So you can't put your Custom Property name on the right of a row (if it's row-based), it has to appear to the left.

5474

Document Generation Profiles cannot contain the same Element data twice

E.g. in a Document Profile, you cannot have a Requirement 'Description' repeated twice anywhere in the profile.

Workaround: there is no workaround for this.

5535

Document Generation cannot reverse '...' values:

'...' is a reserved word of sorts in reversing a document, any valid values of '...' will cause invalid conflicts in the Merge Tool.

Workaround: try avoiding using the value '...' in your data.

5549

Can't Auto-Generate a document if any Project Element has more than 13 Custom Properties

If you attempt to generate a document, where a Project Element has more than 13 Custom Properties, you will receive the following error message from Word: "Internal error: Error code: 0x800403e8 Error description: Unable to automatically add and format Custom Property..."

Workaround: This is a Word restriction, however it is possible to create a Custom Profile with more than 13 fields.

5611

No locally locked icons when pasting/redoing

No locally locked icons appear in Optimal Trace in certain situations, e.g. if you undo a Requirement delete, or if you paste a Requirement.

Workaround: there is no workaround.

7073

Uninstall fully removes URI registry keys

If you uninstall Optimal Trace, it fully cleans up the windows registry. However, if you have a previous installation of Optimal Trace (or an installation of Optimal Trace Professional), the URI's will stop working. This is because the newer uninstall would of removed the 'Optimal Trace' URI setting.

Workaround: To re-register the 'Optimal Trace' URI setting in the registry, it is necessary to re-install the older version of Optimal Trace.

7544

Cannot split Custom Properties in Document Generation

Note that you cannot split up Custom Properties in a generated document, i.e. you can't have property values spread across different tables.

Workaround: There is no workaround for this, it is by design.

8435

Upgrading MySQL from MySQL 4.1 -> MySQL5.0

If your Optimal Trace repository uses MySQL 4.1 and you wish to upgrade to MySQL5.0, you cannot do so directly by just upgrading MySQL alone, as the Optimal Trace schema will not migrate ok.

Workaround: Do the following: Take all your Optimal Trace Repository projects off-line while the Optimal Trace Repository is using MySQL 4.1. Stop the Optimal Trace Server. Install MySQL5.0. Install a new Optimal Trace database in MySQL5.0 using the MySQL install scripts provided (see Server Help file for more details). Change your Optimal Trace Server settings to point to the new database (and restart the Optimal Trace Server). Upload your off-line projects back into the repository.

8445

Document Import on Citrix/Terminal Server

When Optimal Trace is installed onto a Citrix Server, the doc import component will only work for the User who performed the installation. This is because the install process can only register the Doc Import dll for the current user. It has no way of knowing about all the other users, who will connect to the Citrix machine in future.

Workaround: Each of these users must log onto the Citrix Server as themselves. Then they must follow the instructions provided in Optimal Trace Help section 3.2, to manually register the dll. The next time they connect to Citrix (logged in as themselves) and run OT, the Doc Import component should be working OK.

8443

Spell Check does not check Custom Property Templates

Spell Check will only check Custom Property Templates (i.e. the Custom Property Names, Definition, Default Value, etc) of a Package if that Package is not shared and there exists an element in that Package that has contains those custom properties.

Workaround: If you find this happening, create an element in the parent Package which is not being shared, and run Spell Check again. This will correct all sub Packages which are sharing with the parent Package.

8753

Error message appears when opening Optimal Trace

When opening Optimal Trace, the following error message appears: Error in Java launcher. Error occurred while calling main method in java class <com/steeltrace/tools/pelican/PelicanApp>. This problem exists in the Korean and Japanese OS.

Workaround: Elevate user privileges to Administrator. Right-click either the cmd.exe when running via the command prompt or the setup.exe of the media browser to change privileges.

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6. Customer Support and Online Information

Corporate web site

To access Compuware's site on the World Wide Web, go to http://www.compuware.com. The Compuware site provides a variety of product and support information.

FrontLine support web site

You can access online customer support for Compuware products via our FrontLine support site at http://frontline.compuware.com. FrontLine provides fast access to critical information about your Compuware products. You can read or download documentation, frequently asked questions, and product fixes, or e-mail your questions or comments. The first time you access FrontLine, you are required to register and obtain a password. Registration is free.

Customer support

You can contact Compuware Customer Support as follows:

  • Web: via the “FrontLine Incident Reporting Form”.

  • By phone: Compuware Customer Support.

    • USA and Canada customers: 1-800-538-7822 or 1-313-227-5444.

    • All other countries: please contact your local Compuware office.

All high priority issues should be reported by phone.